Dorothy Macardle (1889–1958) was a political and social activist, journalist, novelist, broadcaster, playwright, one of the most popular and influential Irish historians of her time, and a student of the occult. This first biography traces her life from her involvement in the War of Independence to her role as a leading civil libertarian in the 1950s, and discusses her literary career and her international human rights work. An Irish nationalist writer with an international reputation, Macardle was a woman of many parts, and her career sheds light on modern Irish political history, interwar-era women’s history, and Irish historiography and literature.